DOOMS DAY PREDICTIONS
Godlessness in the Last Days
But
understand this: In the last days terrible
times will come.
2Ti 3:2 : For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers
of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents,
ungrateful, unholy, 2Ti 3:3 : Unloving,
unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of
good, 2Ti 3:4 : Traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of
pleasure rather than lovers of God, 2Ti 3:5 : Having a form of godliness but
denying its power. Turn away from such as these!
Signs
of the End of the Age
The
Abomination of Desolation
Mat 24:15: So when you see standing in the holy
place ‘the abomination of desolation,’ described by the prophet Daniel (let the
reader understand),
Paul - Act 20:29: I know that after my departure, savage
wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Act
20:30 : Even from your
own number, men will rise up and distort the truth to draw away disciples after
them.
Luke 17: 27-29: People were eating and
drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the
ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. 28. It was the same in the days of Lot: People were
eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. 29. But on the day Lot left Sodom,
fire and brimstone rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.…
Dramatic changes are taking place on planet earth fulfilling many of the prophecies mentioned above. We see this in every human sphere, be it politics, governance, education, health, agriculture including lifestyle, culture, morals and ideologies. So, it is not unexpected that religions also are undergoing implosion and Christianity is no exception.
Added to this are the facts strident
Hinduism dominated by 3% high caste Hindus over 85% of low caste Hindus and
tribals. They control the government, the administration, the judiciary, the
media and the economics. They are now spreading footprints internationally. The
RSS and their ideological fountainhead have 70,000 shakhas or branches and
hopes to have 100,000 by 2025. 170 million Muslims in India had only about 88
Madrasas (Islamic schools) in 1950, now the number is well over 500,000.
Buddhists who were few and far between in the last century now number in
millions as more and more Dalits (crushed ones) race towards grabbing back what
the high caste Hindus had deprived them for centuries. All these will have
dramatic effect in fabric of India in the next decade.
So, the question is
what the church will look like in the next decade? What changes should we expect
in the light of the present trends?
Traditional church
declining: Let us look at the negatives first – Jesus preached the Kingdom
and sent his disciples with power and authority to preach the Kingdom
but what came out was a dysfunctional creature called the traditional church.
This creature as we know it i.e. needs a dedicated religious building, Sunday
service consisting of a few songs, a sermon and dropping a few coins in the
collection box and then holiday for 6 days and gather again Sunday after Sunday
and do the same thing again and again,
without ever winning a soul. The original church was emasculated by Emperor
Constantine of Rome in the fourth century and what we inherited is the
caricature called the church. Out of a total of 31,102 verses, there is
not a single verse in the Bible that endorses this kind of barren creature.
The word church does
not exist in the Bible.
When Jesus said that he will build
his church, what he had in mind was much bigger and different from the
traditional Sunday Service. The Greek word Ecclesia (ecc=out; kaleo=called)
translated “church=kirk=cerce pronounced kerkhe” means a court of law complete
with magistrates and town clerk (Acts 19:35-39). This cannot be the “Body of
Believers”. In the earlier Greek it was pronounced “ku-ri-a-kos” or “ku-ri-a-kon.”
a word that doesn’t remotely resemble the Greek word “ecclesia” which it
somehow replaced. The meaning of “ku-ri-a-kos” is understood by its
root, “ku- ri-os,” which means “lord.” Thus, “kuriakos”
(i.e., “church“) means “pertaining to the a lord.”
Jesus did not use
either of the Greek words, he told his disciples in John 16:18 that he will
build his “Qahal” in Hebrew which translates simply as “Assembly or Gathering.”
Also, the First Day of
the Week, begins not on Sunday morning but on Saturday sundown when the Sabbath
ends (Acts 20:7).
With only 4000 new churches starting
and nearly 7000 churches closing and almost 30,000 pastors resigning or being
terminated due to burn out, flawed character or moral issues every year in the
USA alone, the future of traditional “Sunday Service” is bleak. In many countries,
splitting for ideological differences, strife, or on Gay issues or fighting in
courts for property grabbing, this non-biblical model of church seems to have
run its course and, on its way out, fighting for existential survival.
As the younger generation has opted
out of this tradition-bound and ritualistic non-participatory model because the
older generation went in pursuit of personal happiness and prosperity and
failed to draw boundaries at home. With the breakdown of the extended family as
God ordained nuclear unit, the breakdown of the church is no surprise. It can
be safely said; many traditional churches will greatly dwindle or even sell out
to people of other faiths. Leaders who fail to navigate
the disruptive trends happening in our culture won't be left with much to lead.
If you ever hope to reach the next generation, change is your friend. All this
in fact, is already trending and gaining ground by the day.
Bible schools closing: As churches shut shop,
there will be no need for reverend producing factories, as their irrelevant and
out of date product will no longer be in demand. They are already facing crisis
in getting local candidates to train as many young people see it as
non-productive dead-end repetitious job. The problem with these institutions is
that they teach them only theology, which is knowledge of God, using the least
effective lecture method.
They do not imitate
Christ and coach them missiology, which is skills-based training in
disciple-making in the harvest field. Theology is taught by theologians and
academicians in a classroom situation, while missiology and apologetics are
coached by practioners in the harvest field.
The former approach does not equip
them to fruitfully engage with non-believers and hence the only place they can
function is from the pulpit from where they keep sermonizing to the same old
converted sheep, and milking the same old cows,
rather than equipping the saints in the their flock to go seek and save
the lost sheep, that are outside their fold. (John 10:16; Eph. 4:12)
Foreign Funding: Missions are accused of being
part of conversion industry, targeting poor people with inducements with
foreign funding. This is now reaching a crescendo, even though we know that
conversion is not by compulsion but by conviction. Actually, it is not
conversion but home coming like the prodigal son. The dominant communities fail
to admit that illiteracy and poverty are the result of centuries of
discriminatory caste system and prohibition of education of women and lower
castes as their foundational ideology. With the nationalist government
clamping down on foreign funding for evangelism and other related ministries, those
totally dependent on foreign funding will have the choice, either shut shop or
find local resources. This will produce healthy churches and missions, as it is
well known that he who pays, calls the shots. Some call it the spirit of
control.
While accountability is a must,
control results in dependency and reproducing donor’s agenda of stagnant model
of institutionalized churches, rather than the vibrantly multiplying,
culturally appropriate indigenous biblical model. We cannot paint everyone with
the same brush, but where this spirit of control operates, it leads to
dependency and therefore fudging the reports by the recipients to keep the
funds flowing.
All resources belong to God (Deut.
8:17,18), therefore any fund, foreign or local should be used for advancing the
Kingdom rather than sustaining non-performing individuals and institutions. The
metrics of a living church are whether they are fulfilling the Great
Commission: making disciples, baptizing and equipping them to go and replicate
the process. (Matt. 28:18-20) It is not how many that come to your church,
rather it is how many that are sent out as Great Commissioners. (John 20:21)
Good biblical example is the Lake Galilee that receives living waters from the
Jordon and gives out the other end, what it receives, and therefore teaming
with life. On the other hand, the Dead sea receives the same water but does not
give out any, hence lifeless. What most churches give is mere tokenism. As
mentioned earlier, with the Government clamping down, closure of dependency
model is already trending.
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